Halo Infinite

The grand return of Halo after all this time and the flagship franchise for Xbox, this game had a lot of pressure to succeed and I think it does for the most part. While I'm definitely not in the boat of a masterpiece and one of the best shooter experiences that I've seen thrown in the past few days, I did enjoy myself in the Halo Infinite campaign. The game has a great engine and the shooting and movement feel just right, something that I was slightly disappointed with Halo 3 when I played earlier this year... and I think that's the most important aspect in a shooter, for the shooting part to feel good and it does that well.

All the classic enemies and weapons are back, so if you've played a few of the titles you will feel right at home recognizing and rediscovering them all over again. It does feel like they were aiming to please the core fans with that and didn't stray away too far from the formula. However the game does introduce a "Ubisoft-like" open world aspect that I don't think fully works here, at least in my experience it felt mostly irrelevant to the game. This is something that can mostly be ignored as none of it really affects the main storyline, you can just move on straight ahead with the main missions and ignore most side areas. There's some rewards to them (most importantly spartan cores to upgrade your shield and abilities) but after a few upgrades none of it feels very essential. Like the game rarely prompts you to go do those side things and your scanner will always point you to the main mission. I feel that they kinda tried to cram this aspect that is seen in modern gaming into the old core Halo systems, and the two don't really blend so well... or at least the execution is not great for it.

That's a lot of talk about the open world stuff, but all in all it's mostly irrelevant... the main campaign itself it most of the time in closed areas and similar to older Halo titles. Objectives to complete and move forward and some great shooting and dodging in the process. This is where I had my fun, and even playing the game on normal mode some of the boss fights were quite challenging with one shot kills. The game is generous with the checkpoints, so most of them can be overcome with trial and error tactics and mastering the right movements. When focused on that, this is what the game does best and I think could be said about the franchise in general. The fluff around it is mostly just fluff. The story leaves a little to be desired, the humor of "Weapon" completely missed me and wasn't very funny... otherwise it's your typical science-fiction war story and I guess is fine if you are into the Halo lore. While most of the big AAA games feature great compelling narrative, I can't really say this is one of the better ones in that aspect.

So while not a game without its flaws, if you just focus on the main stuff of progressing the main missions and doing some cool shooting stuff there is a good experience to be had with this game. Note that this is only about the main campaign content and the multiplayer element is most probably the best aspect of the game, but I'm just way too mediocre to compete with all these crazy FPS players to even stand a chance. A good game? Yes. Game of the year? Hell no. Especially when I think of now Microsoft franchises Doom and Wolfenstein, this game feels a little behind the times and cannot match the excitements of those. But at least it's good and enjoyed my time, so worth giving a shot if you have game pass.